2023-12-29 19:36:44
As anticipated by the Ministry of Health, emergencies are overflowing in certain regions of Quebec. In Lanaudière, more than twice as many functional stretchers are occupied in hospitals.
• Read also: Emergencies: an occupancy rate of stretchers which exceeds 250% in Mont-Laurier
At the end of Friday morning, the Lanaudière hospital had an occupancy rate for emergency stretchers of 224%. This statistic was 175% at the Pierre-Le Gardeur hospital in Terrebonne.
In Chaudière-Appalaches, at Thetford hospital, 190% of stretchers were occupied and in Quebec, the Enfant-Jésus hospital was the busiest with a rate of 129%.
In the greater Montreal area, the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Lakeshore General Hospital and the Jewish General Hospital had stretcher occupancy rates around 200%.
The Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSS) of Montérégie-Est also published a message on Facebook on Friday to remind people of the alternatives to going to the emergency room.
The average wait time in the waiting room in Quebec was just over 5 hours.
The more remote regions of Quebec, however, deal with more normal situations in emergencies, with Bas-Saint-Laurent and the Côte-Nord having the lowest rates in the province.
The solution: home care?
“I have been commenting on the crisis in Quebec’s emergency rooms for 20 years at least twice a year: during the holidays and during the summer vacations,” notes the president of the Council for the Protection of Patients, Paul Brunet. “It’s like we’ve been doing the same business for 20 years.”
Mr. Brunet is proposing a new model in which family doctors would make many more home visits to their patients.
“Guess what, in Verdun, they do this with very sick elderly people and they save 50% of hospitalizations,” he says. “So 50% fewer elderly people that we have to transport to the emergency room, because we have seen them before.”
The president of the Council for the Protection of the Sick, lawyer Paul G. Brunet Photo Cédérick Caron
In mid-December, the Ministry of Health announced the establishment of a special team to manage the situation in the province’s emergencies in addition to a series of measures.
The government then anticipated the impacts of the spread of three respiratory viruses and the context of the strike in the health network.
Quebec hospitals with high stretcher occupancy rates
As of December 29, 2023, number of stretchers occupied / number of stretchers available
Hôtel-Dieu de Lévis: 158% (68/43) Pierre Le Gardeur: 161% (58/36) Cité-de-la-Santé Hospital: 165% (81/49) Montreal General Hospital: 174% ( 54/31) Suroît Hospital: 175% (56/32) Anna-Laberge Hospital: 181% (58/32) Lakeshore General Hospital: 203% (63/31) Jewish General Hospital: 208% (110/53) Royal Victoria Hospital: 209% (69/33) Lanaudière Hospital: 218% (72/33)
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